BRULTE SETS SIGHTS ON REBUILDING STATE GOP

Seasoned politician says getting back to basics is key

“Like the Republican Party, they didn’t have a very good year,” says Brulte, a Charger season ticket holder and the man in line to become GOP state chairman in March.

Brulte is a seasoned politician faced with the task of leading party’s resurgence, something desperately need for a group San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith, a former GOP state legislator, says is in “shambles.”

For the GOP, the wreckage from the November election was widespread: Republican losses gave Democrats a powerful two-thirds majority in the Assembly and Senate, which gives them the ability to raise taxes without GOP votes. In San Diego County, a Democrat sits on the Board of Supervisors for the first time in 18 years, and three-term GOP incumbent Brian Bilbray lost his seat to Democrat Scott Peters, giving the congressional delegation its first-ever 3-2 Democratic edge.

Continuing his football metaphor, Brulte says the party that also holds no statewide offices has to erase the chalkboard and design a new offense.

“If you do the blocking and tackling right, your quarterback can connect with the pass,” said the former assemblyman and state senator. “Just ask Philip Rivers — you can’t connect with a pass when you’re on your back.”

Brulte faces no opposition to being anointed chairman when Republicans gather for their annual convention in Sacramento March 1-3.

He made his candidacy for the unpaid post official during an appearance in Rancho Bernardo Monday evening, telling more than 200 local party members that the GOP has to rebuild from the ground up.

Goldsmith says Brulte is the right man for the job.

“He cannot raise all the money, he cannot be the candidate, he cannot knock on every door, but he can give us the vision and strategy and energy to help bring us together,” Goldsmith said.

Brulte’s agenda is straightforward:

• Raise money to wipe out a roughly $500,000 debt.

• Establish a statewide fundraising operation.

• Early recruitment and training of candidates in every electoral district in the state, including traditionally Democratic ones such as those dominated by African-Americans, Asians and Latinos.

“If we do that, 2014 can be great for us,” said the Rancho Cucamonga area resident.

While many donors now bypass state parties in favor of political action committees or direct donations to candidates, the parties still matter in terms of optics, policies and platform.

The state GOP is deemed to have a large share of the responsibility when things go right for Republicans in California, and when things go awry.

Brulte is no apologist for the party’s state of affairs. Republicans continue to lag in voter registration, with Democrats holding a 14 percentage point advantage. The state platform includes strict views on immigration and opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, the latter two serving to alienate many independents and many of the party’s own moderates.

“There is nothing wrong with GOP principles,” he said. “We just have to get back to the basics of winning elections.”

The party’s fiscal woes also stem from heavily investing in candidates in last June’s primary and backing a failed challenge to the work of a citizen’s redistricting commission.

Brulte said Friday he’s serious about the GOP no longer conceding any election.

“We’re going to go into every neighborhood,” he said in an interview. “There are some areas where Republicans have had no candidate recruitment operations, and we’ve conceded election to Democrats, and that’s not going to happen anymore.”

Brulte’s experience goes back to his teen years when he was a member of his county’s GOP central committee at age 18. His success in the Legislature was marked by being his party’s leader in both chambers, and helping establish a GOP majority in the Assembly in the mid-1990s.

That experience tells him what the party needs most is a nuts-and-bolts chairman, not someone to rewrite policy.

“He’s exactly what we need when it comes to voter registration, raising money and fielding candidates,” Dichiara said. “The policy positions will be worked out over the next year or so, and there are certainly people out there who want to make the party more compatible with the people in California.”

Good luck, says John Burton, the blunt-speaking chairman of the California Democratic Party. It’s the party’s policies that make any resurgence in an increasingly diverse — and Democratic — state electorate unlikely, according to Burton.

“You can be the best basketball coach in the world, but if you have a pack of stiffs, you can’t do much with it,” he said. “He’s good at politics and will be infinitely better than what they’ve had, but he ain’t got the material because what the Republican Party stands for is basically tea party stuff.”

“He’s experienced enough to recognize how hard it’s going to be, particularly when it comes to recruiting candidates in many areas of California. I think he has a smart approach and looking at this long-term. And when you’re at rock-bottom, just about anything would be an improvement.”

Republicans would be well-advised to copy the ground game of the Barack Obama campaign that relied heavily on voter identification and turnout, Pitney said.

But Francine Busby, the new chairwoman of the San Diego County Democratic Party, said turnout is also driven by policy.

“Until they change those and become less strident and extreme, it doesn’t matter what they do because voters aren’t going to vote for Republicans,” she said.

Aaron McLear, who served as a spokesman for former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said there’s no way Brulte can solve all the ills.

“The Republican Party has a long way to go to become as relevant as it once was, and Jim understands that,” he said.

Brulte says the right mix of money, candidates and grass-root efforts will make 2014 “the year we can begin the Republican renaissance, and the year we can begin to take back California. The team will be big enough for anyone who wants to join and pull in the same direction.”